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Monday, May 21, 2018

The Aryabhata Clan by Sudipto Das

Title: The Aryabhata Clan

Author: Sudipto Das

Category: Fiction

Publisher: Niyogi Books

Price: 444

Pages: 476

Snapshot Review:

The Aryabhata Clan is a unique book; truly unique. Reading it
filled me with genuine surprise and pleasure at the growth of Indian Writing,
albeit in an alien tongue English. The scope, breadth and depth of the book is
quite frankly stunning – and it deserves a read for this reason alone, its
weaknesses notwithstanding. The author deserves credit and a standing ovation
for imagination, bringing diverse thought-streams, ideas and domains into one
connected story with immaculate detailing.

THE STORY

What can I say about the story? I am at a loss for words,
and don’t know where to start. But, in a nutshell, the story is an involved
story around a planned terror attack in India, and how some people, alongwith
the authorities, go about thwarting it, and the price they have to pay for it. The
fun part is the base story has been embellished with an eclectic mix of
History, Art, Lingustics, Handicrafts, Ancient Mathematics and Geography to
create a stunning saga. You might wonder what does Art and Linguistics have to
do with foiling a terror plot, to say nothing of Handicrafts? Well, I shan't
tell you, and neither will the book blurb at the back of the book. Read the
book to find out more!

THE ANALYSIS

First, my impression of the book. Now, I have studied
linguistics, as well as in-depth History; even I, despite my proclivity for
these subjects, found the content pedantic and mildly boring in the
early-middle section before the story caught on. On the first reading, I just
plain skipped the linguistic and Handicraft part, and wasn’t any the worse in
my understanding for it. I accept the importance of detailing in a novel, but
this was way too extensive, and frankly a bit tedious. Also, in the early
middle part, about 60-70 pages, are needless, and frankly can be cut down by
half. For this reason alone, my overall rating for the book suffers, and I rate
it around 3 to 3.5 stars.

What this does is it spoils the story in two ways – firstly
it disturbs the narrative, and you tend to lose track; it complicates matters,
bringing extraneous things into it. Second, it hampers character and plot-line
development. A far better approach would have been to find a way to slowly
introduce it, interleaving it with greater emphasis on other aspects of the
plot – which has several parallel lines of development. Do I, the reviewer,
suffer from knowledge bias – having studied History and Linguistics? Perhaps,
that is also possible, fair is fair. That said, this section should have been
dealt with much better.

Moving on, the consummate skill with which the author has
deftly handled the diverse sub-plots, narratives, and methodically laid down
the base of the story, as well as it myriad aspects, right from Linguistics to
History to Mathematics to Paleography to Handicrafts to Epigraphy is frankly
remarkable. Despite a short slip above, he has managed to retain attention –I
did continue reading, didn’t I? And, bringing them all together in one
kaleidoscope of a wide-spectrum story is awesome. I wish I could rate this 5
stars; pity that I cant.

I wont say much about the characters: this story, truth be
told, isn’t about characters. They just failed to register with me. This is not
a discredit – the plot is more about the involved intricacies, not about
people. Thus, focusing more on people would be a decided spoiler. The narrative
is reasonably fast, though complex and involved. This is decidedly not your one
time fast read-and-forget novel; this is a collectors edition, to be read at
your own pace, and with a free mind.

The story gathers pace and improves dramatically from the
middle section, around page 200 or so, and takes on a life of its own. The part
prior to this was more complex, establishing the background, and going into
detailing of the various aspects. Thus, in conclusion, this is a great book to
read, though a bit involved, and complex.

RC Rating: I rate it 3.5 stars overall. With a
bit of reorganization and editing, this is easily 5-star material – but what is
there is good enough. No doubts on that score!

About the Author: An alumnus of IIT KGP, Sudipto is a successful entrepreneur, having co-founded two start-ups. He is also an author, musician, columnist and a speaker at TED events. A violinist, trained in Western classical music, Sudipto debuted as a music composer in 2014. He is a member of an amateur music band, Kohal. History, culture, language, writing, music and travel feature prominently in his range of interests.

The Aryabhata Clan is his second book, the Ekkos Clan being the first.

Vishal Kalehas an MBA in Marketing with 16 years of experience in Sales, Marketing & Operations across various industries, with end-to-end specialisation in telecom sales and marketing.

He is an Indian Top Blogger {on ITB Website} for the past 2 years and counting; Nominated in top 5 Political Bloggers by Blogadda in Win-15 & Among the top 200 bloggers worldwide on Invesp. He specialises in deep politico-economic analysis; Books off the beaten track, and a value & fundamentals-based approach towards the Indian Economy, Corporate India - And Especially Indian Colonial History"